Where to start? I always have a tough time figuring how much history to provide at the beginning of a story. This is our fifth Desire vacation. We were at Pearl for the inaugural Sexy Young and Wild month in 2014. We were at Riviera Maya in September of 2013, October of 2012 with the Week 43 bunch, and our first trip was March of 2011. If you want details on the previous trips, go find the trip reports (though I think the first 2 or 3 reports got lost in the great forum migration a couple years ago).
This trip began at noon on Friday, July 31st as we departed our jobs in downtown Seattle. We hit happy hour at Japonessa Sushi Cocina for a delicious lunch then walked across the street to Fran's to pick up a bit of traveling chocolate. Then it was off to SEATAC to catch our flight out. We like to treat ourselves on these trips, so our flights were first class on United, whose first class tickets can often be had for less than coach tickets on other airlines. We got to the airport well ahead of our 6PM flight to Houston, so we parked ourselves in the United Club and partook of some complimentary food, beverages, wifi, and electrical outlets.
The flight to Houston was uneventful. We had a room booked at the IAH Marriott (paid for in airline miles) where we showered and caught a few hours of sleep during the layover. At 5:30 CDT (3:30 Seattle time) we were taking the shuttle back to Terminal E for our 7:30 flight to Cancun.
We scheduled our flights for a relatively early arrival (10AM Saturday) because past experience has taught us that Immigration and Customs are fairly uncrowned in the morning as opposed to the afternoon. Not so this time. We spent nearly 45 minutes waiting in the Immigration line. Customs, on the other hand, was a breeze. We plowed through the timeshare muggers and burst forth into the hot, humid Cancun air to find our transfer to the resort.
We arrived at Desire Riviera Maya just before noon. Arco welcomed us home and took our bags from the transfer driver. We toddled inside and the lobby was packed. For the first time ever, we had to sit and wait to check in. Check-in was smooth. Hilario gave us a brief spiel about the coupon book we could receive if we would just sit through the timeshare pitch. We informed him that our mornings were all booked up with sleeping and coffee before our 11:00 appointment with Africa and C.C. on the beach and thus we wouldn't be attending a timeshare pitch. It was interesting that he framed the pitch as an "annual update" to our old-school membership instead of a straight up sales pitch.
Anyway, our room wasn't ready so they told us to go enjoy ourselves and stop back by the lobby after 2:30. So we went down to the beach in search of Rene, the beach concierge, to get ourselves a bed for the week. Rene wasn't immediately available, but the beach bartender (who wasn't C.C., wtf?) was very happy to see us and poured us a couple drinks. About that time, Rene showed up and we arranged to have bed 31 for the rest of our stay (no charge, courtesy of the Premier membership). We then meandered up to the lunch buffet for a bite to eat. At this point, I have to say that the remodeled pool bar/outdoor buffet area looks fantastic. Don't get me wrong, we loved the old lunch palapa, but this is a major upgrade. Of course, the best part of lunch was the people watching. We saw several couples we recognized from previous trips, including The Bloggers (who we've never really talked to, but they ALWAYS have laptops and tablets handy, typing away), and J&A from Dallas (who are now officially our Desire stalkers as we have run into them on 3 trips in a row across 2 different resorts).
After lunch, we headed up to the (now open at 1PM instead of 3PM) hot tub area to have a drink in the shade and enjoy the view and breeze. We had the whole place to ourselves and spent some time talking to Diego, the new bartender. Apparently he's been with the Desire family of resorts for a little over a year and today was his first day on his own at the hot tub bar. As it turns out, he got tapped for hot tub duty because Abraham, one of our favorite bartenders, was on vacation (meeting his girlfriend's family for the first time). Abraham I'll be back on our last full day, hopefully we'll run into him.
At 2:30, we went back to the lobby and our butler, Arturo, informed us that the room we had requested (first floor, ocean view, as far away from the pool as we can get) was ready. We grabbed another drink at the lobby bar and met him over at building 25. He brought our luggage and our two 25 minute relaxing massage vouchers. We unpacked all of our luggage and jumped in bed to catch a quick nap before our 7:30 Sahlo reservation.
Sahlo is a very interesting space. We never realized just how narrow the room was when it was Il Piacere, but it's pretty obvious after the remodel. The appetizers were OK. The beef was excellent. The dessert was good, but nothing new. And, of course, there was people watching. The Bloggers showed up. They took pictures of each other eating. Then a large group arrived to celebrate Eddie's (if you're on these forums, you MUST know Eddie and JoJo) birthday.
At about 9, we headed back to the room to change for the disco. At this point, I should mention that we have NEVER made it to the disco on our first night before. Whether it was severe sunscreen-induced eye irritation, incredible levels of inebriation, or simply travel fatigue, we have always found an excuse to simply crash into bed after dinner on our first night. This time, maybe because of the afternoon nap, we were wide awake and ready to go see the show. We got into the disco just as it opened at 10 and got ourselves a prime seat by the dance floor. As it filled up, J&A from Dallas ended up right beside us with some of their friends and they finally recognized us. One of their friends put on quite a show on the pole, which got everyone in a good mood for the night's professional show: the "Chippendale" dancers. Those two fellas really know how to put on a show for a crowd of drunken perverts. And the female drunken perverts that got pulled on stage to receive the attention of the male strippers were great sports and, I think, may even have surprised the pros with both their willingness to participate in some friendly bump and grind and their athleticism. Ladies of Desire, you rock!
After the male strippers, there was much drinking and dancing. We did a bit of both before heading back to the room a little after 12 for some us time. It's pretty rare for us to be in bed by 10:30 Seattle time, but we are on vacation and we'll go to bed when we damn well please.
It is now 9:39 on the morning of Sunday, July 2nd. Our first full day of Desire will be kicking off soon. As usual, you'll have to wait for tomorrow to read about today. And these updates are likely to get shorter and less detailed as the trip goes on because we're doing this for ourselves, not for you people. There are also likely to be periodic updates on our dirty Twitter account: @BirdsCancun (follow us!).
If you have any questions, feel free to ask here or via PM. Now it's coffee time.